On Computers: Truly useful websites

Jim Hillibish

Monday

Apr 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2010 at 4:31 AM

Great websites are compelling because they provide unique services. That’s a rarity in our generic Web world, where you can get the same info on 50 sites. The envelope please: My nominations for the Most Truly Useful Websites of 2010.

Why are nearly all websites alike? Webmasters, like others in the media, are inveterate copy cats.

Great websites are compelling because they provide unique services. That’s a rarity in our generic Web world, where you can get the same info on 50 sites.

Web users are now complaining about the relentless jadedness of the medium. So where is the brilliance so often touted for the Web?

The envelope please: My nominations for the Most Truly Useful Websites of 2010.

Midomi.com

First is an upstart music search engine at: www.midomi.com

Yes, you can listen, buy tunes, read bios and news, just like the countless other sites. Midomi allows you to sing or hum a few bars into your microphone and most often finds the song.

I’m still slightly blown away by this. I have mental blocks on song titles. I can hum a few bars, and that’s all I need on Midomi.

I hummed a few seconds of Eleanor Rigby. Of course, the Beatles popped up. Below them was Suzanne Vega in her “Solitude Standing.” She borrowed vigorously on a Rigby melody. Music plagiarists can no longer hide.

Midomi works by activating your computer microphone. The uses of this technology are priceless, including cell phones. This is voice indexing, and I’d bet a lot of sites will have it in a year or so.

It will be perfect for Web-enabled vehicles and cell phones. Then the Midomi guys will retire to Aruba.

Mse360.com

We tire of the usual search sites. We need a search site to search search sites. Enter another Truly Useful site: www.mse360.com

This newcomer starts like Google but the similarity ends there. The hits are in columns labeled Video, Twitter, Web, Web images and blog results.

The result is a lot more hits. I searched on “applesauce recipe.” MSE scored 33 million, Google 1.07 million. This is a searcher for everything on the Internet and not just the World Wide Web.

Clusty.com

Do you ever wonder what treasures are hidden in page 65 of your Google hits? Go to: http://clusty.com/